Online service providers often request information from the users to allow them to tailor the services or extras offered. Online service providers may include online news services, game sites, survey sites, etc. These requests often take the form of user profiles. The user fills out information that may relate to the services desired, and the user's demographics, including personal information, professional information or both. The provider then uses this information to make suggestions, provide related information to the user, such as through newsletters, advertisements, etc.
Using the example of an online survey provider, for example, the user may employ such a provider to produce surveys for the users' own purposes, such as a customer feedback survey for a salesperson at a car dealership. The user may then end up at the survey provider's site through another link. For example, the user may be sent a customer feedback survey as a customer, rather than a provider. The user accesses the survey to provide feedback. As part of the process the user provides the user's email address or other information. The user information may be different, resulting in two different profiles or partial profiles for the same user in the survey provider's system. This can skew the survey provider's data, clutter the system or cause the survey provider to rely upon outdated in formation.